"When I vote for a player I am upholding him for the highest individual honor possible," he wrote in the magazine this week. "My vote is an endorsement of a career, not part of it, and how it was achieved. Voting for a known steroid user is endorsing steroid use."

Other writers who I read often and respect greatly offer a much different point of view.

ESPN's Buster Olney, for instance, seeks a compromise. He believes the drug users should be enshrined in Cooperstown, but they would go in with a plaque explaining the sordid history of the steroid era.

"As I've written here before, I don't think anybody should pretend that 20 or so years of heavy drug use didn't happen in baseball. It's part of the history, like the championships won and games lost are a part of the history," Olney wrote. "Barry Bonds was eligible to play games for 22 years, and he played at least some of them with the aid of performance-enhancing drugs, which means that he was the same as thousands of his peers in the in the major leagues and minor leagues.

"I voted for Bonds, just as I have voted for Mark McGwire every year he has been on the ballot. They were some of the best of the best of their generation. I also think that if there's relevant information that's established, any information about PED use should just be put on their Hall of Fame plaques."

It's an interesting concept, but I can't agree with it. Sometimes there is no room for compromise.

In case you are wondering, the qualifications for election to the Hall of Fame is not limited to hits, homers and strikeout totals. Character and sportsmanship are part of the equation.

It's right there in black and white in "The BBWAA Rules for Election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame." At the bottom of the first page, Rule 5 reads: "Voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played."

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